9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Mickey Spillane IS Mike Hammer, March 31, 2000
This review is from: Girl Hunters (DVD)
Having watched a number of Mike Hammer t.v. shows, I was looking forward to seeing what the author (Mickey Spillane) could bring to his creation. I was not disappointed. I was, in fact, suprised by how well he played Mike Hammer, and I would definitely recommend this film to fans of all ages. The only thing that bothered me about the film is the often annoying soundtrack. Note: the movie is in widescreen format
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good, gritty Mike Hammer B-movie, August 10, 2000
"The Girl Hunters" is considered to be by many the second best screen adaptation of a Mike Hammer detective novel ("Kiss Me Deadly" being the first). In this one the author, Mickey Spillane, plays the role of Hammer. He's somewhat wooden in the part and his voice does not lend itself to film acting (it's raspy), but he is passable as Hammer. The film itself is B-grade but it is a good, gritty one. Shirley Eaton, from "Goldfinger", plays the female lead quite well.
The story moves at a quick pace and several scenes stick in the mind. One takes place in a bar where Hammer convinces a bad guy that it in his best interest to swallow a bullet. A second is an ultra-violent confrontation between Hammer and the villian that is better than the fight between Connery and Shaw in "From Russia with Love" (Hammer finds a unique method for getting the defeated villian to stay put for the police that is extrememly violent for the time the film was produced). Also, Hammer's advice on how to properly care for shotgun lingers at the film's fade-out.
The widescreen version is very well done. The black and white print is crisp.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Mickey Spillane IS Mike Hammer, June 23, 2005
This review is from: Girl Hunters (DVD)
Mike Hammer's ex-partner, still a cop, has a squad unit drag him out of a booze washed gutter so that Hammer can hear a fatally wounded man's last word. The man will speak only to him, and, to Hammer's surprise, the dying man leads him to believe that Hammer's old flame - Velda - whose disappearance and presumed death lead to a lost weekend that stretched into months - may still be alive. Velda's fate is tied up with a prominent politician's `accidental' death, a 50-year-old ultra secret European group that dreams of spearheading a worldwide dictatorship, and the mysterious red - as in commie - assassin known as The Dragon.
Okay, he ain't Ralph Meeker or Stacy Keach or any other Hollywood pretty boy who jams a fedora on his bulb and plays tough for the camera. Mickey Spillane plays the fictional Mike Hammer, the ex-cop he created and rode to worldwide fame starting shortly after the Second World War with the runaway best-seller, I, the Jury. Spillane's Hammer is a big man, a wide cinderblock in a trenchcoat with a nose broken once for effect and once again for the fun of it. Unfortunately, Spillane is possessed of a cinderblock's charisma and animal magnetism, as well. Fortunately, THE GIRL HUNTERS keeps the obligatory love scene short and, if not sweet, at least dialogue-free. Anyway, whatever they were doing was over quick and when Mike Hammer ain't doing that - and (thankfully) he ain't doing that much in this one - he's talking tough, and like his literary creation, Spillane can talk tough with the best of them.
There are a couple of notable actors in THE GIRL HUNTERS. In 1964, the year after THE GIRL HUNTERS was made, Shirley Eaton played the gold-painted corpse in the James Bond movie Goldfinger. In THE GIRL HUNTERS she plays the widow of a murdered politician and spends most of her time running around in skimpy bikinis that wouldn't seem overly modest forty years later. Veteran character actor Lloyd Nolan plays federal agent Arthur Rickerby, who has a personal and `unofficial' interest in Hammer's investigation, which amounts to a score to settle with whoever it was who killed the same man that told Hammer that Velda may still be alive. Beyond pushing the plot forward, Nolan is around to add some professional ballast to the movie and give Hammer a chance to make ha-ha by mangling his last name over and over and over again. Nolan was a good actor and he adds value to this one, even though his character is peripheral to the main story and only pops in and out of the movie now and then for short scenes with the star.
I liked THE GIRL HUNTERS. The transfer print of the 35mm original was in very good shape, and it's presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. This black-and-white film (original distributed in the USA by Colorama Features, no less) had good scale tone, or whatever it is the techies call it when the blacks are deep and rich and the whites shimmer. I thought the author Spillane would make a terrible actor, but he was a convincing Mike Hammer and more or less carries the story. For the first 85-minutes or so the violence is there but relatively tame - the last ten minutes or so contain a couple of discreetly edited gruesome sequences. High recommendation for this one, if you can find it.
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